EDITOR'S CHOICE -- SCOTT SUTTELL

Belt the magazine promises to come out swingin'

Blog Entry: August 27, 2013 12:50 PM | Author: SCOTT SUTTELL

A new magazine in Cleveland called Belt, which expands on the popular “Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology” book and website, is about to launch, and it gets some great national exposure in the form of this Q&A by TheAtlanticCities.com with editor-in-chief Anne Trubek.

TheAtlanticCities.com notes that Belt's official launch was last Friday, Aug. 23, with a party at St. John's Parish Hall in Ohio City. Belt's beta site will be up until Sept. 9, when the first issue is released.

When “Rust Belt Chic,” published last year by Ms. Trubek and Richey Piiparinen, was a success, “people started asking Trubeck and Piiparinen what would come next,” according to the story. Belt is their answer.

Here are a few highlights from the Q&A:

TheAtlanticCities.com: You mention in your mission statement that your region deserves more serious attention and consideration than the occasional coverage generated by "outsiders who fly in for the weekend to report on colorful sports fans and declining property values." Isn't that pigeonholing in and of itself?

Ms. Trubek: “Good point. But the point is simple: People across the nation are interested in what's happening in the Rust Belt. It's becoming a topic of discussion for urbanists and people involved in the arts, especially. Experienced writers who live here are the best-qualified people to write about these new developments for the nation — not as boosters, of course, but as journalists. There are many of us here and we are good.”

TheAtlanticCities.com: The Plain Dealer laid off a third of its staff last month. Is this the time for a new kind of publication? How, if at all, will you contribute to the gaps?

Ms. Trubek: “We are not a newspaper, and have no pretensions of becoming one. We are going to focus on a few things we know we can do well — intensely and well-editing long-form journalism, commentary and first-person essays.”

TheAtlanticCities.com: What are some of the stories you're working on now?

Ms. Trubek: “Our first issue is queued up and ready to go and it's fantastic. We have a deep dive on the Anisfield-Wolf Awards, a 78-year-old Cleveland-based book award for works that address issues of racism, which has an incredibly high caliber of past and present awardees and famous jurors but an oddly low profile in town and the nation. And we have a hilarious essay, "S&M in the CLE" by novelist Alissa Nutting, whose book 'Tampa' has been the talk of the literary world this summer.”

There's already great stuff on the Belt website, which looks like it's going to be a must-read for Clevelanders and anyone interested in urban issues.

The hole story

The Wall Street Journal has a case of tunnel vision in this story, which gives prominent play to comments from an executive at Robbins Co. of Solon, one of the world's largest producers of tunnel-boring machines.

Doug Harding, vice president for sales at Robbins, “travels the globe hawking giant cylindrical augers that can chew a train route through a mountain or burrow a thoroughfare under a city,” The Journal notes. He tells the newspaper that people are endlessly intrigued by the mix of brute force, cutting-edge technology and unknown goings on beneath their feet.

"Sitting on a plane, talking to the person in the next seat, the conversation is usually one-sided," Mr. Harding says. "They ask me all the questions." (Crain's profiled Robbins in 2007; you can read that story here.)

Ian Mansfield, a tunnel enthusiast in London and member of Subterranea Britannica, a U.K. society focused on man-made underground structures and spaces, explains the fascination with tunnels this way: “It's something that's hidden. Anyone can see a bridge."

Borers “can both excavate a tunnel and line the tube automatically, staffed by only about 20 workers,” according to the story. “Their pace can range from a few inches per day through wet, unstable terrain to the 409 feet in 24 hours that Robbins recently claimed as a record pace on a dig through hard rock in Indianapolis.”

Mr. Harding understands the appeal for engineers.

"If you're a mechanical engineer, which would you rather build?" he asks. "A machine that makes light bulbs, or a machine that can cut a hole in a mountain?"

On the up and up

The Washington Post picks 10 rising political stars — five from each party, in old media's even-handed fashion — and one of them is a Republican from Ohio.

Can you guess who it is? Go ahead, take a minute.

Did you come with the name of Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted? If so, congratulations — you know your politics. (And if you guessed Josh Mandel, just stop reading now.)

Here's what The Post has to say about Mr. Husted:

Following state Treasurer Josh Mandel's unsuccessful Senate bid in 2012, Husted may be the Ohio GOP's next big hope. The secretary of state served in the state Senate and as speaker of the state House for four years. He didn't have a great 2012 election, overseeing some controversy over how the state conducted its elections. But the 45-year-old is still in line for big things, including potentially his party's next gubernatorial candidate, after Gov. John Kasich (R) is finished.

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